With help from God, we can not only survive the trials in life but thrive!

A COMMENTARY FROM THE HEART

I am happy in the service of the King… and I spend a lot of time laughing at myself in the process! There’s not a doubt in my mind that my God has a great sense of humor because I can just imagine Him belly laughing at my blunders as I make a feeble effort to minister.

One Easter Sunday I marched into the choir loft and thought the whole choir was following me in. They were not. There were well over 100 people in the congregation, but I knew they loved me in spite of my character, or perhaps because of it.

One summer at VBS I was playing one tune while the one running the projector had another set of words on the screen. We had confused children because the adults could not get their act together. Hey – it happens.

We are sooooooooooooo human! We do our best, we really do. Ministry can be the most frustrating thing because you pour so much of your heart, soul and mind into it. We work so hard to make sure things will go off without a hitch, and they rarely do. Things go well at practice. Too bad the people missed the practice.

When I think of daylight savings time, I’m reminded of a time when my husband and I were in a gospel group several years ago. We needed to travel to Eastern Kansas to do a concert. I debated about whether to wear the dress for the trip or take it on a hanger and change when we got to the church. It was a church we’d never played at before so no one really knew much about it. I decided to take the dress on a hanger and wear my blue jeans in the truck. I had done that before and there was usually a nice restroom to change my clothes in.

I was comfortable for the trip, but once we found the little church there was immediate PANIC on my part. The church consisted of one room with wooden pews and a platform with what looked like a handmade stand for the Bible to set on. That was it. No Sunday School rooms, no other rooms at all (believe me, I looked)!

I did what I always do – I prayed! I think it was something like, “Lord, You are going to have to help me because there’s no way I can do this concert in my blue jeans!” Well, I would have been okay with it, but I’m pretty sure they would not have been.

Two really funny things happened at that church. As we began to practice, a very old dog walked in, sat down in the middle of the aisle, as though it was what he was accustomed to doing. We finished our first song and he stood up and walked right back out again. Now THAT is a critic!

The pastor showed up. I hated to ask, but I had no choice. “Excuse me, but is there a restroom here?”, I asked shyly. He grinned and told me the church had an OUTHOUSE.